Weekend Movie Guide: ‘GAME ON, C*CKSUCKERS!’

FilmDrunk Suggests: Normally, I’d be a lot more excited about Kick-Ass 2, but all of this Jim Carrey stuff has really soured me on it, and it’s getting ripped to shreds all over the place – even Vince, who absolutely raved about The Smurfs 2 and apparently hated Kick-Ass 2 – so I have nothing to be excited about. I’ll probably go see 2 Guns and imagine Mark Wahlberg trying to playIron Man.

“Kick-Ass 2” can’t decide what it wants to be when it grows up: a vessel for unhinged vengeance and destruction or a meta-critique of those same impulses. – Ann Hornaday, Washington Post

Writer-director Jeff Wadlow establishes a premise and follows it without compromise, but the trail leads to a very ugly place. In the end, the journey wasn’t really worth it. – Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Armchair Analysis: I’d like the TV spots with the poorly-edited “GAME ON, BITCHES!” to go away. We all know that she says, “GAME ON, COCKSUCKERS!” so just leave it out and stop trying to trick people into thinking that it’s any less vulgar than they already think it is.

A one-frame review of ‘Jobs’

Jobs

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 25% critics, 53% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

Like the man it’s about, “Jobs” is thin and unassuming, but keeps surprising you with ideas and innovation. – Joe Neumaier, NY Daily News (That’s my frontrunner for worst review line of the year.)

If Jobs had been a producer on Jobs, he would have sent it back to the lab for a redesign. – Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail

Armchair Analysis: Every time I see the commercial and hear Ashton Kutcher whispering in the voiceover as older Steve Jobs, I laugh so hard. There are just some actors who are victims of their own unique personal style and behavior, and Kutcher is among the most famous. There is so very little that he could ever do to make me and plenty of other people look at him and not think, “Hey what’s up, Michael Kelso and the guy who tricked idiots into thinking trucker hats were cool.” He could vanish for 1,000 years and train at a monastery for the world’s greatest actors, and when he eventually returned to play God in an epic masterpiece written by angels, someone would be like, “Oh shit, it’s Kelso!”

We know that Kutcher wants to be taken more seriously because, “He’s an investor and a businessman, bro” but you’re only as deep as the “DUDE” tattoo between your shoulder blades.

Armchair Analysis: I’m glad everyone else is calling this out as a clear ripoff of The Firm so I don’t have to. I would have also gone with Enemy of the State and Antitrust, but The Firm is 100% accurate.

Lee Daniels’ The Butler

Rotten Tomatoes Scores: 71% critics, 73% audience

Gratuitous Review Quotes:

It’s too obviously a careful tour through American history, and while some sequences work – particularly the various attacks on civil-rights workers – too much of it feels as flat and cheap as a film strip. – Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger

“Lee Daniels’ The Butler” might have been titled “Lee Daniels’ Forrest Gump” – its hero challenged morally rather than mentally, but watching history in Gumpian fashion, as a series of cameos viewed through a slightly clueless daze. – John Anderson, Washington Post

Armchair Analysis: I’m going to start referring to everything I do by introducing it with my name. For example, after I finish writing Ashley Burns’ Weekend Movie Guide, I’m going to take Ashley Burns’ Jeep to Ashley Burns’ favorite Taco Bell and get some lunch, after which I’ll take an Ashley Burns’ trip to the bathroom and then nap for several hours on Ashley Burns’ couch.

First, I don’t get how Weinstein lost the battle for the title “The Butler” to a 1916 movie, when, for instance, there was a 1986 “Heat,” a 1995 “Heat” and a 2013 “The Heat” with no litigation.

Second, I’m shocked that when it became an issue, they couldn’t think up a better title than The Butler. “But he’s A BUTLER. What the hell else are we going to call it?” “Well, like, they didn’t call the new Superman movie Superman.” “SHOULD WE CALL OURS SUPERMAN?”

Third, do any of the Presidents wonder why the butler is winking at them?